Scores of people, it seems, were reminded anew of the growing pains, and delight, that often go hand in hand with moving to the city.

Readers’ comments ran the gamut, from lonely newcomers who still felt lost to people who remembered their early days here with great tenderness.

Others disagreed with the notion that anyone other than people born in the five boroughs could ever be considered New Yorkers. And a few native New Yorkers insisted that it was the arrivistes, rather than people born in the city, that acted standoffish and brusque, and gave the city its reputation for being rude.

Dennis Kelly, who grew up in Long Island and works in Queens, wrote:

As someone who regularly holds doors open for other people, and who is born and raised in New York I find that the rudest “New Yorkers” are younger professionals transplanted from other places that are trying a little too hard to be “real” New Yorkers.

Everyone knows the stereotype from movies, and they try to live it. Their only guides along this path are other transplants who have “made it” because they have that “real” New Yorker attitude. Your article only managed to further entrench this stereotyping. Rude is not the new black. It never has been.

(Mr. Kelly also conceded that as a native Long Islander, he might not be qualified to comment like he was “a real New Yorker.”)

Yet the bulk of the e-mail messages were from people either nostalgic for their former days in New York City, or still struggling with their transition.

Here are some excerpts from a few more readers, all of whom gave permission for their e-mail messages to be published.

David Steiner, who is 24, moved to New York from San Francisco in June 2007. He loved his new life at first, but after a few months began to feel lost and alone. He decided to return to San Francisco after visiting two months ago. He wrote:

For the last two weeks I was very excited to go back. This morning I woke up to read your article and was struck by the poignancy of it. Your article opened the flood gates of denial that I had been harboring. It made me realize what a mistake I am making by moving back.

(Mr. Steiner said he now plans to go to San Francisco in a few weeks to “figure out a few things,” and then return to New York).

“It’s been a really trying time and it’s good to know that other people are going through the same dilemmas as I am,” he wrote.

And from Gini Hamilton, who now lives in Chapel Hill, N.C.:

I moved to NYC over 30 years ago from Alabama, and even though I’ve now been living OUT of the city for another 20, your article took me right back to my own first moments of realizing I belonged there, that I was “in sync.” I don’t know if that happens anywhere else. Thanks for the memories.

Roger Greenwald, who was born and bred in the Bronx, left “decades ago” and now lives in Toronto, said he felt the article spoke to a quintessential trait of New Yorkers: directness. One quote in the article, from Lisa Phin, a 25-year old Texan commented that “nothing is sugar coated” in New York, particularly resonated with him:

I’m one of what you might call the opposite breed: New Yorkers transplanted to other places (we are everywhere, I have found). Has relocation changed me? Sure–a LITTLE! Your article may help a couple of my friends to understand the New Yorkness I still carry with me.

Others, like Joe Hayden, who was born in Brooklyn and raised in Staten Island, said that even he related with the culture shock some newcomers from California felt:

Personally, I’d rather switch with them and transplant myself to the west coast, where kindness is met with an awkward eye and a personal pat on the back pocket to make sure the wallet is still in place.

And Janima Nam, who lived in New York from 1990 to 2005, and has since moved to Vienna, Austria, said she was reminded of “all my hardships starting out and what a thick skin I had to develop over time,” she wrote. “My heart really goes out to all those young people who must make these painful adjustments to such a tough city.”

But the e-mail message I found most moving came from Lisa Gritti, who moved away from the city “14 years 5 months” ago, and now lives in Easton, Md.

“I got misty-eyed and texted two friends whom I met during my first year in the city over 25 years ago,” Ms. Gritti wrote. She also urged that I write a follow-up article on what people experience after leaving New York. She added:

Even if you love your “new” life, once you become a New Yorker in your soul, your heart still sighs with regret that you left. I spent less years in NYC than away from it but when someone asks me where I’m from, I always respond proudly “New York City.”

Little by little people become one with the City – the pace, the attitude, the stress and the inspiration.

Call me proprietary, but the people who have traveled from other places to settle here, while they do become New Yorkers, they often match the grit and grime of those of us who grew up here during the tough times.

After working and living in the NYC area the last 7yrs. we were forced to relocate to the South West. We moved to NYC at a latter age than most my wife and I were 53yrs old at the time. We quickly settled in and took in every aspect the New York City area had to offer, beaches, mountains nearby, unique villages and history all within a few hours drive. The city has rewarded us well, we ate at over 400 resturants, attended 29 Broadway plays, witnessed first hand our 1st Macy’s parade, took in All the tourist sites and walked a total of over 3,000 miles of streets, buildings and parks. And after all this experience the only rude and crude people we ever met where here from out of town. I may never have the honor to call ourselves New Yorkers, however we will always have our part of the Big Apple.

Having lived in the same neighborhood in Manhattan my entire life, we natives can also be parochial. My neighborhood is like a little Sicilian village where leaving is like making a Medieval pilgrimage. My trips to the outer boroughs are like trips to the country while the suburbs and rural areas seem to be primeval forest. It is all perspective.

Who will rid me of these turbulent transplants?
Just as NYC’rs would be mocked by the locals if we fawned over ourselves becoming farmers or something, (“Look at me, I’m using a shovel!!”) this self-congratulation is immensely worthy of pooh-poohing.

Three cheers for the much needed observation that it is transplants who are the rudest and generally least capable of dealing with life’s little hiccups among the NYC population. They step off the bus thinking that they have to walk around in armor all the time, but that ain’t no way to live! Wear a smile, don’t be afraid to obey the right-of-way while walking on the sidewalk, let that big, scary city you fear so much in!

Sorry, Ms. Gritti, you’re not “from” New York City. Sure you spent some time here and we natives are glad you still harbor affection for our town. But a romantic memory of a short stop along one’s life doesn’t make you a native. Those of us who were born and raised here can claim that, not you.

I attended a concert at Roseland a few months ago when a woman with a southern accent asked where I was from. When I replied New York, she wanted to know what neighborhood. Queens, I said. She replied that that really wasn’t New York, as she should know, she once lived on the upper westside for 2yrs!!! I was left speechless!

Frank Sinatra sang it the best, “New York, New York”. Yes, I’m a native, and always will be. I miss it dearly. The smell, the concerts, the trains, buses, shopping, shows, you name it I miss it. I’ve gained a ton of weight since moving from the “Big Apple” five years ago. Flooorrriiidddaaa …(yawn)… is a place where you have to drive. Too hot to walk,..interact…(augh)….I’m coming home….

I moved to NYC from Boston. At the time I naturally thought of Boston a “city”, but after being in NYC now for 7 years, Boston feels more like a town. So the sheer size, pace, maze of subway lines etc of NY…I really was not prepared for. It’s one thing to VISIT NYC; it’s quite another to live here day in day out. That fact in and of itself was an adjustment for me.

Perhaps my story is not that typical (due to all the experiences I outline below), but my first year here sure was a difficult one! But after that first year, I think I was prepared for pretty much anything the city handed to me.

I moved here in April of 2001, all on my own, with no family here and no friends…just an “acquaintance” or two. I planned my move a year in advance, and was set to move on a particular date, whether I’d found an apartment in advance or not (in which case I was going to camp out at the Y and put my stuff in storage…) Fortunately, one of these acquaintances I’d mentioned found me a one-month sublet, where I was also able to fit all my possessions. During that month I found a more permanent apartment and also began a job search. One month after moving into the sublet I had to pack up again and move to my new-found apartment. A few months later, in June of 2001, I got a job working in the World Financial Center (across from the WTC).

Well we all know what happened 3 months into my job, located right across the street from the WTC. It was a very difficult time of course, also because I didn’t have a circle of friends/ family here.

About five months after that, there was a very bad fire in the brownstone attached to my apartment. My building (and subsequently my apartment) suffered alot of water/smoke damage. I had to move out of my apartment for a week while the place “dried out”, and fortunately one of the acquaintances that I’d now become more friendly with offered me a spare bed in her apartment. After that, I then had to return to my apartment, trash my bed, couch and a number of other items, and then begin the cleanup process (my slumlord of a landlord did absolutely nothing after the fire, not even cleaning/repairing the common areas that were damaged in our building…)

Anyone who claims to be a New Yorker who wasn’t born here should be asked to name one neighborhood in Queens that isn’t Astoria or Jackson Heights. Or one neighborhood in the Bronx for that matter. If you think New York is just Manhattan you’re not a native. You’re a tourist.

And just how old are these natives?
I got into an animated conversation on the 34th Street Cross town bus this afternoon after I sat down beside a delightful frail elderly but still lively little Black lady.
She said she was from the Virgin Islands and had come here with her parents during World War 11.
I told her I came from Bangor, Maine On September 11th 1961.
She was decrying all the new luxury Condos in Harlem and I was lamenting about all the new Co-Op buildings on the upper East Side.
Finally, as she got up to leave the bus I said;
“And you know we have both lived here long enough to say that we got here first!”

In 1997 my divorce came down to 2 final choices. Either I pay a huge alimony & child support settlement to retain half equity in all the material wealth we had acquired over the years, or: give my ownership in everything I owned and leave town after the court session with just the clothes on my back and the money in my pocket. I chose the later because it meant freedom, but also poverty. After court I got on the bus and headed to my hometown of NYC. I put myself in the NYC homeless shelter system soon after my arrival. Within weeks I got a job and was on my way to building the greatest life one could possibly imagine. Today my web resume is number 1 in every country on earth. I knew if there is any place in the world to make a come back, New York City is the place. I love New York!

I wasn’t born here but my mom says I was conceived here, and she should know. I remember the first time I walked down the street in New York, back in the sixties, I thought, this is it, this is home, this is where I’ve been my whole life. But could I call myself a New Yorker? After several years, there came a day when I was walking down the street and it suddenly hit me that there were lots of different stories attached to all the different people on the street, but that among all these people, I was one of the New Yorkers, this was my home, always would be and, in my soul, always had been.

I moved to the city from Texas in 1985, and I can’t see myself ever going back or leaving New York at all. Most of my family members still live in Texas, and that’s about the only reason I ever go there. I sometimes think about what it would be like to leave, but I live in a rent-stabilized apartment, and probably wouldn’t be able to afford moving back here if I left.

I’ve never adopted any sort of brusque attitude in my 22 years here, and all of my native New Yorker friends are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.

Born and raised in NYC, I am also a licensed tour guide. There is a poet, known to me only as R. Cunningham, who walks the streets of Greenwich Villge, handing out his poems on little slips of paper to those he feels needs or deserves them. This is one, apropos of this article:

FANTASTIC BEAST

Hi
I’m New York City
The Fantastic Beast
I eat people
The ones who love me
Taste the best
The ones who hate me
Sometimes escape
But, I’ll maybe eat their children
Someday
I hope you
That makes you more delicious
Have a nice day
– R. Cunningham

I don’t see what the fuss is about. I was born and raised in Manhattan, much to my chagrin. I never liked it. I liked the people, at times, especially the great and unique differences between my city school experience (lots of different cultural groups, greater acceptance of one’s uniqueness) and relatives’ suburban experience (narrow-minded meanness). But that’s where my appreciation ended.

I don’t see how people can live in NYC, at least in Manhattan. It’s dirty, congested, crowded … I moved upstate after grad school and loved it, but returned to the city to care for a sick mother. After her passing, I got lazy and remained in my cheap, nice apartment for too many years, all the while yearning for greener pastures.

We’re here now, relocated to the suburbs with my husband and dogs. We all love our improved quality of life. Although I still work in the city, that weekday dose is about all I can take now. The boroughs can be nice to live in – hubby is from a lovely area in Brooklyn. But Manhattan? Gah, meant for fun and culture, not for one’s home.

I am back down South now, but I lived in New Jersey for 11 years. I moved there to get to New York, but I could never afford to live in the city. God willing, I’ll be back very soon.

But one of my fondest memories was my father’s concern that I would have trouble adjusting to life up North because “folks up there aren’t very friendly.” Now mind you, my dad had never been to New York or New Jersey and was from the from one of the most dangerous parts of Memphis, a city known for its violence even back in the late 80s. I remember being amused by his sentiment since I had not found my classmates at my Memphis college to be especially friendly.

Granted, some of my neighors in the Central Ward of Newark did try to stare me down. But ladies in the subways in Harlem and Brooklyn gave me directions when I got lost. When I had trouble paying my rent, my New York friends lent me money to see me through. Sure it was scary being there with no money. My Jersey friends fed me. But having my face up against the window looking in inspired me to go to law school, allowing me to live the life I enjoy now. If I had not been there, I doubt that I would ever had gone to law school. The economy makes me a little apprehensive about moving back now that the opportunity do so has arrived, but when someone recently asked me how I liked being back home, I wasn’t sure how to answer the question. Memphis is my hometown, but New York is the place that feels like home.

As a freshly transplanted Floridian now living in the city for 3 weeks, this article was a great look into how I am already adapting to the city life. You don’t comprehend how far you’ve come from that small beach town in Florida to New York when your standing in the Village looking up at the Empire State Bldg and you just say to yourself “wow”. With only 3 weeks living here, I do already see myself walking faster, talking quicker, and am always in a hurry. Is it the city? Maybe, but in the end maybe everyone has a little bit of Manhattan in them, they just don’t realize it.

Be proud about all this immigrants who build this city and work too …, from europe or every country.

“melting pot, thirst of life and optimism”
do not forget the story of the city, Do not be that persons of private means…
And be pleasant(kind) with the tourist and the foreigner, the newcomer.
nyc, Built by the newcomers.

This discussion reminds me of the famous description offered up by E.B. White so many moons ago but which still resonates with an undeniable force:

“There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last–the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.”
-E.B. White, “Here is New York,” 1948.

I moved to NYC from Washington, D.C. about ten years ago when I was twenty-four years old. I was very lucky because before moving here I had spent a lot of time in NYC for business and pleasure. I knew the subway system, I had many friends living here scattered around different neighborhoods and I even had regular hangouts (many of which are now long gone). The transition was seamless for me because I was so familiar with the city, it’s pace and people. It certainly didn’t hurt that I hated living in my hometown and that I spent three months living in New Jersey with a friend, but working in NYC, before I found an apartment.

My brother, however, had a much rougher transition. He and his wife moved to NYC from Tokyo about three years ago. They were pretty miserable at first and it wasn’t until recently that both have begun to express love for the city. They had to adjust from living in what I call to an “orderly city” to one where disorder is a way of life.

Do I consider myself a New Yorker? Yes. To date, the most formative years of my life have been spent in NYC; I’ve built a career here and developed a close circle of friends; and, I’m more intimately familiar with the city than any place on earth, save for where I grew up. The problem is that the area where I grew up has undergone such massive change over the past decade that I don’t recognize it and I don’t feel at home there (my family no longer lives there, so my emotional attachment is not as strong as it normally would be).

I know native New Yorkers who have spent their lives “cloistered” in their respective neighborhoods. They don’t identify with the city as a whole, just their little piece of it, and their ideas are often about two decades out-of-date (i.e., “That’s a bad neighborhood, why would you go all the way out there for dinner?”).

For example, I once dated a woman who was born, raised and lived on the Upper East Side and she refused to come to Brooklyn because “it is dangerous.” We worked together at a magazine publisher with 5th Ave offices overlooking Central Park, but we lived in completely different New York’s. Mine encompassed five boroughs, hers was a sliver of Manhattan.

The piece of advice I give all new New Yorkers is this: New York is as provincial as any place on the planet. You can own it or it can own you, but so can any place.

I was born and raised in NYC by native New Yorkers. My family has lived within these bouroughs long enough to at one time been farmers here. I don’t know if that makes my opinion any more valid than anyone elses but it’s who I am. I think that there are plenty of transplants I would call real New Yorkers.

One of the ways I determine if they are really New Yorkers is to ask them about their future in the city. Would they raise their kids here? Do they still want to be living in a small space with a family? Would they be ok with their children getting on a subway and or bus by themselves to go to and from school like we natives did as children (in a much more dangerous NY I might add)? Can they only conceive of it if they have nannies and send their kids to private schools? Do they want to turn 75 years old in the city? Can they picture themselves no longer hip or healthy in their twilight years living off of retirement invesments and social security in these 5 boroughs?

If not, than your just visiting and you should probably just be quiet about being a New Yorker.

I also need to comment on the rude New Yorker thing. I have to agree with the guy that said that it is the transplantees who are putting on the costume of the New Yorker who are really rude. New Yorkers are tough, brusque, and generally short on time. It’s a fast paced city that doesn’t always leave one time for pleasantries, which non-natives take as being rude. I was walking across 33rd street last summer and a guy had a hand truck loaded with boxes. The hand truck toppled over in the middle of the street and the boxes went everywhere. About 5 people (real New Yorkers) helped him get all the boxes back on the hand truck in about 30 seconds and then continued on their way. It was very fast nobody said a single word to anyone else. To out-of-towners, not asking the guy if he was ok and stopping for the little niceties would make this rude. To a New Yorker the guy needed a little help we gave it to him as quickly as we could and we got on with our day.

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